Saturday, July 22, 2017

Coding is an integral part of any programming job interviews Java development interviews are no exception. I would even suggest you should never hire anyone without testing their coding skill, coding is also an art and more often than a good code is a good developer as well. If you look at tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google they thoroughly test the coding skill of any developer they hire, particularly Amazon who first send online coding exercises to filter Java programmers who can code. This online test usually gives you requirements and ask you to write a program in a limited time usually 2 to 3 hours. The program should meet the output given by the exercise itself. These type of exercises are very tough to crack if you don't have a good coding skill.
Btw, the most important question is how do you develop that kind of coding skill in the first place? Well, things always start small and if you pay attention, there are many Java Job interviews where you would have been asked to write small programs.

They are simple but yet they give a good indication of coding skill of prospective candidates. They are usually preferred by many companies because it usually requires 10 to 20 minutes to write the solution and discuss them.

In this list, I am going to share 50 of such small programs from Java Programming interviews. These programs are from various Data Structure and Algorithm topics e.g. array, string, linked list, binary tree, etc. If you don't have a good knowledge of Data structure and algorithm, I suggest you to first read a good book on Data Structure and Algorithms like Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen.

Top 50 Java Programs from Coding Interviews

Here is a big list of Java programs for Job Interviews. As I said it includes questions from problem-solving, linked list, array, string, matrix, bitwise operators and other miscellaneous parts of programming. Once you gone through these questions, you can handle a good number of questions on real Job interviews.

1. Fibonacci series (solution)
Write a simple Java program which will print Fibonacci series e.g. 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 ... . up to a given number. Be prepare for cross questions like using iteration over recursion and how to optimize the solution using caching and memoization.

2. Prime number (solution)
Write a Java program to check if a given number is prime or not. Remember, a prime number is a number which is not divisible by any other number e.g. 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 etc. Be prepared for cross e.g. checking till the square root of a number etc.

3. String Palindrome (solution)
You need to write a simple Java program to check if a given String is palindrome or not. A Palindrome is a String which is equal to the reverse of itself e.g. "Bob" is a palindrome because of the reverse of "Bob" is also "Bob". Though be prepared with both recursive and iterative solution of this problem. The interviewer may ask you to solve without using any library method e.g. indexOf() or subString() so be prepared for that.

4. Integer Palindrome (solution)
This is generally asked as follow-up or alternative of the previous program. This time you need to check if given Integer is palindrome or not. An integer is called palindrome if its equal to its reverse e.g. 1001 is a palindrome but 1234 is not because the reverse of 1234 is 4321 which is not equal to 1234. You can use divide by 10 to reduce the number and modulus 10 to get the last digit. This trick is used to solve this problem.

5. Armstrong number (solution)
A number is called an Armstrong number if it is equal to the cube of its each digit. for example, 153 is an Armstrong number because 153= 1+ 125+27 which is equal to 1^3+5^3+3^3. You need to write a program to check if given number is Armstrong number or not.

6. Avoiding deadlock in Java (solution)
This is one of the interesting programs from Java Interviews, mostly asked to 2 to 3 years of experienced programmers or higher. Interviewer simply asked you to write code where a resource is accessed by multiple threads. You need to write code in such a way that no deadlock should occur. The trick to solving this problem is acquiring resources in an order and release them in reverse order e.g. first acquire resource R1 and only if you have got R1 go for R2. This way you can avoid deadlock.

7. Factorial (solution)
This is one of the simplest programs you can expect on interviews. It is generally asked to see if you can code or not. Sometimes interviewer may also ask about changing a recursive solution to iterative one or vice-versa.

8. Reverse a String (solution)
This problem is similar to the String Palindrome problem we have discussed above. If you can solve that problem you can solve this as well. You can use indexOf() or substring() to reverse a String or alternatively, convert the problem to reverse an array by operating on character array instead of String.

9. Remove duplicates from array (solution)
Write a program to remove duplicates from an array in Java without using the Java Collection API. The array can be an array of String, Integer or Character, your solution should be independent of the type of array. If you want to practice more array based questions then see this list of top 30 array interview questions from Java interviews.

13. Square root of number (solution)
You need to write a program to calculate the square root of a number without using the Math.sqrt() function of JDK. You need to write your logic and method to calculate the square root. You can though use popular algorithm e.g. Newton's method.

18. String Anagram (solution)
Write a program to check if two given String is Anagram of each other. Your function should return true if two Strings are Anagram, false otherwise. A string is said to be an anagram if it contains same characters and same length but in different order e.g. army and Mary are anagrams. You can ignore cases for this problem but you should clarify that from your interview.

19. Design a Vending Machine (solution)
This one of the popular OOAD (object oriented analysis and design) question from Java Interviews. You will be given 3 hours to design and code a vending machine satisfying some of the business requirements. You also need to write unit tests to prove your code satisfy those requirements. You can see this article for more object oriented analysis questions.

30. Sort array using quicksort (solution)
You need to write a Java program to sort an array of integers using quick sort algorithm. You cannot use any library method e.g. JDK or a third party library, which means, you need to first implement the quicksort algorithm and then sort the array.

31. Insertion sort (solution)
Write a program to implement the insertion sort algorithm in Java. The program should take an unsorted array and sort it using insertion sort algorithm Also explain the best case and worst case time and space complexity of Insertion sort algorithm.

32. Bubble sort (solution)
Write a program to implement the bubble sort algorithm in Java. You can use basic operators and functions but sorting functions from Java API is not allowed.

34. Print all permutations of String (solution)
Write a Java program to print all permutations of a given String. For example, if given String is "GOD" then your program should print all 6 permutations of this string e.g. "GOD", "OGD", "DOG", "GDO", "ODG", and "DGO".

39. Reverse a linked list (solution)
Write a program to reverse a singly linked list in Java. You can use iteration and recursion to solve this problem but you should reverse linked list in place.

40. Find the length of linked list (solution)
Just write a program in Java to find the length of a singly linked list in one pass i.e. in just one iteration of singly linked list.

41. Check if linked list has loop (solution)
Write a program to check if given linked list has a loop or not. Sometimes a linked list get corrupt and two nodes point to the same node, which forms the loop or cycle in the linked list.

44. Find the 3rd element from the tail linked list (solution)
You need to write a program to find the 3rd element from the tail of a singly linked list. You need to solve this problem without iterating twice. If you want more linked list questions you can see the article about frequently asked linked list interview questions.

44. Convert a linked list to a binary tree (solution)
It's possible to convert a doubly linked list to a binary tree, you need to write a Java program which takes a doubly linked list and returns a binary tree.

45. Sort a linked list (solution)
You need to given an unsorted linked list and you need to write a program in Java to sort them in ascending order of the values in each node.

46. Iterative Quicksort (solution)
You need to write a Java program to implement quicksort sorting algorithm without recursion. You can use essential JDK classes and programming constructs, but recursion is not allowed.

46. Bucket sort (solution)
This program is increasingly getting popular on Java interview because it sorts a given array in linear time. Though there are a lot of prerequisite e.g. you must know the maximum value present in the array, it is a very interesting problem from interview point of view. You need to write a program to implement bucket sort algorithm in Java. If you are not familiar with Bucket sort or any other linear sorting algorithm, I suggest you to first read a good on algorithms e.g. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen.

47. Counting sort (solution)
This is another problem which is similar to the previous one because counting sort is also a linear sorting algorithm. Just remember that bucket sort and counting sort are different algorithms, so it's also good to state how they are different.

48. Check if two string rotation of each other
Write a program which accepts two given String and checks if they are the rotation of each. If they then return true otherwise return false. A String is said to be a rotation of other string if they contain same characters and the sequence is rotated across any character e.g "dabc" is a rotation of "abcd" but "dbac" is not. If you want to practice more string based questions, you can also see my list of 20 String based algorithm questions from Java interviews.

49. LRU cache in Java (solution)
Write a program to implement an LRU cache in Java. An LRU cache means Least Recently Used Cache which removes the least recently used element if the cache is full. You can use LinkedHashMap to implement LRU cache in Java.

50. Merge sort
Implement the merge sort algorithm in Java. You can write a recursive or iterative solution, whichever you like. You also need to explain the time and space complexity for the best, worst, and average case.

That's all about top 50 programs from Java interviews. You can practice these Java programs even if you are not preparing for any Job interview. They not only help you to do well on your programming job interviews but also on learning how to code and developing your programming skill and coding sense.

These small programs touch several important areas e.g. popular data structures like an array, linked list, binary tree, binary search tree, string etc, popular algorithms e.g. sieve of the Eratosthenes algorithm for generating primes, the Euclidean algorithm for calculating LCM and GCF, Fibonacci sequence, printing patterns and so on.

These programs also touch base on useful operators like bit-shift and bitwise operators, modulus operators and others. Overall, you get a good understanding of Java programming world by practicing these Java programs from coding interviews.